A Violet Coloured Coffin
by jazztasticness
Summary: A young girl is drawn as a tribute. She won't come out alive. Or will she? My own take on how an OC games should be constructed. Not a SYOT, only has one POV. Because I don't have the emotional capacity to care about 24 people at once, and how they feel, etc etc. Bit of a rant summary, but I wrote this because a couldn't find a fic with this layout. But my friend say's it's good!
1. Chapter 1

I was herded into my age group's section, sucking my pricked finger. I was quietly confident. The odds were in my favour. I only had two names in the glass bowl, the minimum, out of around 500 other girls, and a lot of them would have taken tesseraes. My family may not have quite made it into the "middle class" status, but with 7 full time workers in the family, including two of my brothers who had been promoted to guardsmen, we weren't doing too shabby. Being the only girl out of 7 children, I didn't even have to wear hand-me-down dresses. My mother had started a bit of a game of matching the colour of my dress to Caesar's hair. This year she had gone for violet, to match my middle name.

I was daydreaming about what I would do with my day off. My parents always paid for everyone in the family to stay off work or school on reaping day. Just in case. Though this year I felt a pang of guilt knowing it might be one of my friends who went to their death this year. An epidemic of infant pneumonia had left the numbers of sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds quite depleted in District 7, my own family had lost a daughter in that time, my sister Lavender Maia. She was my namesake.

As Borrann Jaczeus, the District 7 escort, made his way to the stage, my friend Pene and I started doing silent impersonations of his bobbing head as he gave the usual speech. I was still giggling to myself as he read out the female tributes name, so I missed it. But Pene wasn't laughing any more. She was staring straight at me.

"Where is Miss Maia Fairweather?" Borrann called.

My giggles choked themselves into tears. I was going to die.

* * *

AN

because my Beta had a hard time pronouncing these, Maia is MYah and Pene is Penny, like Penelope. This will not be a SYOT, and it will only show Maia's POV (until I get about 3/4 in). I've written this primarily because I was desperate to read something with this kind of layout, but they all give all the views of every tribute at every stage of everything, and I just don't have the emotional capacity to care about 24 people at once.

I am very reliant on reviews and support, or I just give up if I think no one is enjoying it. Don't let me give up!

Disclaimer

Yes, in fact I DO own The Hunger Games. I got it in a box set and everything.


	2. Chapter 2

Pene gave me a shove and my legs remembered how to walk. I was only thirteen years old. In other districts, and older kid might volunteer in the place of the younger tributes. But that really wasn't an option here. I was already sealing my fate. If you cry, you look weak. You'll be easy to kill. A tribute never cries. I couldn't even see where I was going.

"Ah, here she is! Oh...bother... someone fetch her a tissue?" declared Borran.

He drew out the male tribute's name, a fifteen year old boy named Justice Meriston. I didn't know him. But he smiled at me anyway.

I blubbered and sobbed all the way through the peace treaty. My hands were too sweaty to shake Justice's hand properly. I was more relieved than I had ever been when I was lead away into the Justice building. A peace keeper had obviously felt a pang of sympathy, because my parents had already been fetched and were waiting for me. I fell straight into their arms.

We held each other in silence for the longest time. A peacekeeper began banging on the door and forced it open.

"Time's up!" he bellowed. I heard nothing but the door shutting quietly. I can only imagine the face my father gave him.

"Mummy, I'm scared."

"I know, Baby. And whatever happens, you'll still be coming home. Where did you leave your list?"

"In the purple petal, in the bunch of flowers in my windowsill."

"I will follow it to the very last letter. I promise."

My brothers were let in. Lister and Levi, the twins and the eldest at twenty-four, each took one of my hands. We said nothing. They each kissed a cheek, and it was all I needed. Dorcan, Reggie and Kamdon all hugged me, with a little word of luck, Hadley gave me a kiss on my head, just as he did when I was a baby, and Lysander, the youngest at 17, who had once again survived the reaping, scooped me up in a hug.

"I would have gone for you if I could. I know Lavender would have as well. You're so young. You're so small. Just run for it, sis."

He put me down, and this time they were forced to leave. I sat by myself and my tears continued to fall. My mentor, Adrienne, was renowned for being harsh and uncouth to her tributes. I would surely have to eat my tears for this obvious mistake. I began to cry even harder. I hated being shouted at.

"You will follow Borrann to the train," said an especially robotic Peacekeeper, who hadn't even bothered to knock on my door.

I snivelled my way along the corridor. Borrann clearly didn't have very much patience for me. I couldn't even bring myself to look out of the window as we pulled out of the station. I spent the first three quarters of an hour sobbing into my knees, curled up on a seat in the dining cab.

"Ok. I've had enough of this racket now! The rest of us would like to eat, and we can't do that with you blubbering like a baby in the corner. Snap out of it. On your feet. Look at me!"

It was my mentor, Adrienne. I followed her orders as if I was a soldier doing a drill. Though I sniffed a little, I managed to hold her gaze without a single tear falling.

"Much better. Now come and sit. I know the whole baby act is part of your plan, but it's completely unnecessary when there are no cameras here."

"P..Plan?"

"Oh please, Kid, everyone can see what you're doing. Play the weakling so the careers will ignore you in the bloodbath. Many have tried, but you're perhaps pathetic enough to pull it off!"

"I wasn't pretending..."

"See, that shows you have the exact amount of patheticness for the job! The capital will see you as their own daughter. We've already had calls to sponsor you. You're adorable."

I chewed a roll of bread dipped in a rich tomato soup. Maybe I wouldn't be sent home on the first day after all.

"I mean... you're both going to die, that's hardly in question. But you might not die straight away. Or at least Maia might not. She's not threatening enough to waste effort on in the initial struggle."

I had laughed at my mother that morning for telling me to write a list. Now I was so very glad.

I had told her what I would want at my funeral.

* * *

AN

Contrary to what the summary suggests, this is actually a serious story and I plan to continue it for as long as I can, however, I'm very reliant on reviews, ideas, praise and criticism, or I just give up. I don't want to give up this time!


	3. Chapter 3

The capital food was spectacular. My mother could make a banquet out of lettuce and beef stock, but this stuff was the food of the gods. I had calmed down quite a lot since having food in my stomach. Having lost my lunch in the Justice Building, I had grown weak from all my upset. Justice and I had played some board games after dinner. He was a genuinely caring young chap. I learnt he had left 3 younger siblings behind, with this widowed mother. He essentially adopted me.

"We'll stick together, ok?" he said to me before we parted to our separate carriages for bed. "I'll do the killing, you be my look out. I've seen you in the woods at weekend-work. You always scale the tallest trees to find the most delicate branches for District 1. If there are trees, that will be handy. Even if you're on your own, the careers are too bulky to climb after you. Adrienne said they were both volunteers again. We're watching the Reapings before lunch tomorrow, and then coming up with some tactics afterwards."

I nodded. He was so collected. He had lost me at the word "killing", and I was trying to hold back tears again.

"Don't worry. Everyone looks out for the younger ones. Even the careers have a soft spot for cuties."

I couldn't help but snort. My older brothers always called me "Cutie Kid Pie", and admittedly, I was exceedingly small and dainty. I was barely scraping four feet in height, and I still had a child's body. My hair had never been cut, and my syrup coloured waves hung neatly down my back, kept out of my face by two butterfly slides, one by each ear. These had been bought by my nana for Lavender, and left to me in my nana's will, as she died when my mother was expecting. She knew I would be a girl. Nanas always know.

I smiled at him. "See you in the morning, then."

"You too. No more crying, kay?"

"Kay..."

* * *

AN

I promise to put more in this chapter tomorrow, but for now, it's bedtime!


End file.
